Ryan Shawcross - the man whose popularity rises with every challenge

TODAY marks the 10th anniversary since one Ryan Shawcross first pulled on a Stoke City to make his debut in a Championship fixture at Cardiff City, since when he and his club have realised unforeseen dreams during one of the most dramatic and successful periods in the club’s entire history.

We should have guessed it was the start of something special, something very special, when Ryan Shawcross marked his Stoke City debut with the only goal in a 1-0 win at Cardiff City a decade ago today.

He wasn’t to know that beating an old rival like Cardiff tingled the spine of any Stoke fan - and he certainly wasn’t to know that his winner that day would launch the club’s promotion campaign and would begin to define his next decade in professional football.

At just 19 years of age, and six foot and plenty tall, Shawcross was still growing physically into a body that would fill out handsomely to quickly become a reassuringly intimidating presence at the heart of a defence marching towards some of Stoke City’s greatest years ever.

Signed on loan from Manchester United in August 2007, he arrived with a welcome mixture of confidence and humility that would soon endear him to team-mates and supporters alike.

"I'm really looking forward to coming to Stoke," said the softly-spoken and evidently shy defender. "I'm sure Danny (Higginbotham) will look after me at Cardiff tomorrow.

"A few clubs (Championship rivals Crystal Palace, Southampton and Norwich) were interested in me, but Stoke was the best option and it didn't take long for me to decide."

Tony Pulis was the manager nurturing the Shawcross talent and Mark Hughes the manager later developing it still further.

Read More

Speaking last season about his one-time captain, Pulis recalled: "I've got tremendous respect for Ryan. The lad I first saw at Hyde United was a long, skinny piece of something and I just took an instant liking to him.

"I thought there was something there we could work with and I'll never forget his debut at Cardiff when he scored the winner and that set him up really.

"I don't think I've done a better deal and I don't think Stoke City have ever done a better deal than signing that boy."

Some praise for a player making his 383rd appearance for the club when he leads them out for the start of his 11th campaign as a Stoke City player at Everton tomorrow.

Shawcross would be the first to acknowledge the debt he owes to the likes of the aforementioned Higginbotham, Leon Cort, Abdoulaye Faye, Robert Huth and a catalogue of other sidekicks playing alongside him at centre half over the past 10 years.

A young Ryan Shawcross joins Stoke 10 years ago

His popularity owes plenty to the defensive game he developed to such a point that even Roy Hodgson could no longer completely ignore his international claims.

But that popularity here in Stoke also owes plenty to the bad times and how he mastered them.

An automatic pick for almost the entirety of his time at Stoke City - he’s now played more Premier League minutes than any player anywhere since promotion in 2008 - he was actually dropped after Stoke’s painful Premier League induction at Bolton, but it was a blow to inspire, not cow, such a tenacious and proud youngster.

And no Stoke fan, surely, would have ducked out of the chance to throw a consoling arm around him, just as Thomas Sorensen did, when the red-carded Shawcross departed the pitch in a flood of genuine tears after that Aaron Ramsey incident back in February 2010.

Read More

Even big, ugly centre halves (not that he’s that ugly!) can burrow their way into our affections.

His defensive abilities have been such that he bears comparison with the best centre halves this country has seen during his time in the Premier League.

His ability on the ball and his distribution from the back have been less celebrated, it’s true. and seemed to justify his exile from the England scene both before and after his solitary cap?

Again, in such adversity, his popularity here in the Potteries has simply flourished as fans sympathised hugely with a player handed his one England appearance as a late substitute - a poisoned chalice for any defender - against a rampant Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Stockholm in November 2012.

It’s an episode which must have deeply hurt Shawcross, even if he can quip a little about it now, but it says much for his character that such a public setback never once appeared to disrupt his enduring consistency in red and white stripes.

In later years fears have understandably arisen over his long-term fitness after being laid low by back trouble, but yet again he appears to have treated such a potential calamity as little more than an inconvenient hiccup to be negotiated and swept aside in the best interests of Stoke City.

He kicks off yet another season as Stoke’s talisman with further questions to be answered, what with less than a year left on his current contract, rumours of interest from Burnley and the prospect of two serious rivals at centre half in Kurt Zouma and Bruno Martins Indi.

But the past 10 years has taught us that the greater the challenge, the greater the response, from a player destined to be decorated as one of Stoke City’s best. Ever.